MattRoberts
Established Member
You're absolutely right - I can't remember the exact figure, but I think the average reading age for online users is about 14 years old!
The 'Janet and John' school of website design
- Thread starter RogerS
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Eric The Viking
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I'm out of the game now (wrote my first commercial web pages in 1994!), but whatever happened to Responsive Design? The company I used to work for did some excellent stuff with CSS around that concept, and it seemed to be pretty cool and a good way forward. I've noticed, though, that a lot of the bigger commercial sites simply don't really bother, or get it horribly wrong. Ebay and Toolstation are evidently trying, but to my mind both are horrid visually and a step backwards from the (simpler) way they used to be coded. They're also bandwidth hogs, and on a gigabit/co-ax internet connection, eBay often freezes while the client waits for some pointless code to download or execute.
On Apple: frankly they are pathetic. We recently bought my 89-year-old mum a big iPad. She's not stupid nor senile, but she presently has vision problems (one cateract sorted, one to go). Once you look carefully at Apple's iPad design trying to see it from her perspective(!), it's obvious how poor and un-ergonomic it is. There are inconsistencies all over the GUI - glairing ones, and anyone unfamiliar with the "Apple Way" could be forgiven for bafflement.
Apple make very few concessions to people with vision problems. For example, they seem to use a lot of CSS-ish control over screen presentation - changing the font size on-screen isn't global, it seems to only affect limited classes of text. I have presently given up trying to get her email to display sensibly (for her). The worst stuff of all is Apple's own correspondence. They send automatic email messages in a font that's frankly stupid and unreadable, and locked, so that the recipient can do nothing to improve its legibility. Change the font size does no such thing - it seems to change only the letter size, leaving spacing, kerning and the letter space itself unchanged. So you have an extremely limited choice, before things become stupidly unreadable. And obviously, not changing the font size means wrapping doesn't work correctly either.
Frankly the latest versions of iOs on this iPad look tacky, amateurish and half-finished. It was a VERY expensive purchase, and it's been nothing but one stupid, unnecessary problem after another.
And don't get me started on modal dialogs, such as writing emails, which aren't consistent with each other, or things in hierarchical lists, such as email folders, which are not shown as hierarchical (try explaining that to someone who can touch type pretty fast, but has trouble understanding window behaviours in Linux). Then there's tabbed browsing in Safari - seriously nasty. And a near-total absence of context-sensitive help (which REALLY surprised me, and not in a good way).
The hardware is nice, but frankly Apple seem to have lost the plot as far as anything GUI is concerned, and that includes their web presence. I won't recommend an iPad to anyone else unless/until Apple have a serious re-think.
Time was when their GUI was simply better than anyone else's, and it was worth the premium price as productivity was so much better, as was the reduced threat from villains. Not any more. If you get the impression I'm actually quite angry about this, you'd be absolutely right.
E.
On Apple: frankly they are pathetic. We recently bought my 89-year-old mum a big iPad. She's not stupid nor senile, but she presently has vision problems (one cateract sorted, one to go). Once you look carefully at Apple's iPad design trying to see it from her perspective(!), it's obvious how poor and un-ergonomic it is. There are inconsistencies all over the GUI - glairing ones, and anyone unfamiliar with the "Apple Way" could be forgiven for bafflement.
Apple make very few concessions to people with vision problems. For example, they seem to use a lot of CSS-ish control over screen presentation - changing the font size on-screen isn't global, it seems to only affect limited classes of text. I have presently given up trying to get her email to display sensibly (for her). The worst stuff of all is Apple's own correspondence. They send automatic email messages in a font that's frankly stupid and unreadable, and locked, so that the recipient can do nothing to improve its legibility. Change the font size does no such thing - it seems to change only the letter size, leaving spacing, kerning and the letter space itself unchanged. So you have an extremely limited choice, before things become stupidly unreadable. And obviously, not changing the font size means wrapping doesn't work correctly either.
Frankly the latest versions of iOs on this iPad look tacky, amateurish and half-finished. It was a VERY expensive purchase, and it's been nothing but one stupid, unnecessary problem after another.
And don't get me started on modal dialogs, such as writing emails, which aren't consistent with each other, or things in hierarchical lists, such as email folders, which are not shown as hierarchical (try explaining that to someone who can touch type pretty fast, but has trouble understanding window behaviours in Linux). Then there's tabbed browsing in Safari - seriously nasty. And a near-total absence of context-sensitive help (which REALLY surprised me, and not in a good way).
The hardware is nice, but frankly Apple seem to have lost the plot as far as anything GUI is concerned, and that includes their web presence. I won't recommend an iPad to anyone else unless/until Apple have a serious re-think.
Time was when their GUI was simply better than anyone else's, and it was worth the premium price as productivity was so much better, as was the reduced threat from villains. Not any more. If you get the impression I'm actually quite angry about this, you'd be absolutely right.
E.
RogerS
Established Member
Rats! Went to the FT site this morning to discover that they too have gone over to Janet and John...well, they are looking to go that way as I got redirected to next.ft.com which is their new site for two-year olds. Noticed at the bottom the option to return to the old site, aha, I thought, I'll be able to grab a before and after. But then I ran out of free 'looksies', so I signed up for a cheap trial period...went back to next.ft.com to see that they've removed it for the moment. Pah!! I shall watch and wait.
One of my pet hates is Microsofts absolutely awful suite of fonts. Their version of times has to be the worst looking in the history of computing. I've seen hundreds of amateur articles over the years and it's rare to find anyone with the sense to choose a nice looking font. I will admit the TNR is easy to read but you can have both easy to read and attractive, Adobe seem to manage it ok.
RogerS
Established Member
Well, this is very interesting. When you do a 'compare and contrast' the font size is not that much bigger if at all. It just seems larger. I think that it is a question of the layout. In the old layout the text flows round inset lists etc but in the new layout those insets disappear. I still prefer the old layout.
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Thanks for taking the time to do the comparison.
They've just moved away from the old fashioned print layout which was constrained by paper costs, page count etc. I think the new one looks less busy, easier to read on a screen. Probably flows much better if one were to increase font size within the browser too.
They've just moved away from the old fashioned print layout which was constrained by paper costs, page count etc. I think the new one looks less busy, easier to read on a screen. Probably flows much better if one were to increase font size within the browser too.
RogerS
Established Member
Interesting. I wonder if it's an age thing - (although I have no idea how old you are, Wuffles !). I like the old layout - possibly because it does look more like the old-style print layout. Just find that it doesn't flow for me and that I have to spend more time scrolling (seemingly). Also I think the three photos at the bottom of the first page are pointless.
